SpringHillian Web Editor
Mobile Bay Magazine Intern (Summer 2015)
"What's In A Name?"
Imagine the first day of school. Students enter the classroom and find their seats as the teacher takes attendance. She goes through the list, calling on Lucy, Mark and Susan without a problem before stopping, staring at her roll for an uncomfortable amount of time, furrowing her eyebrows and saying nothing.
“Here. I’m here,” I always answer.
And so has gone every first day of school, ever. Unless, of course, my teacher felt extra ambitious and attempted pronunciation: “Gayle-yerd,” “Gil-yerd,” “Gay-yard,” “Gay-yerd,” and
so on (and on and on). As a child, I always dreaded the first day of school. Each year, I cursed my forefathers for encouraging my parents to give me such an impossible name; why couldn’t
I just be Jane? Jane is a nice name.
My grandmother, Martha Gaillard Teague, tells me that the pronunciation of the name wasn’t always an issue. It was just understood, like the pronunciation of “Wednesday.” She says, “For me growing up, Mobile seemed to be a much smaller community, and ‘Gaillard’ was rarely mispronounced. People just knew the name.” Well, times have changed, and today, “Gaillard” is as confusing and misunderstood as ever.
However, as I learned the story behind my complicated appellation, my affection and pride for it grew. It began during my search to answer the frequent and once embarrassing question of, “Why did your parents name you that?” Sifting through my grandmother’s overstuffed manila folder of time-stained documents and letters, I discovered information about the light and dark shades of my ancestral history. Together, they instilled in me a deep appreciation for my family’s past and a desire to learn more.
We Southerners take great pride in our roots. We receive disproportionate pleasure from being able to say, “My family has been here longer than yours.” Maybe it’s all part of our Southern ego ... I mean, charm. Or maybe, we’re just genuinely proud of our families and where they’ve led us. I’m claiming the latter as an excuse to share a bit of my own history.
With the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 that prohibited Protest-ants from public worship, thousands of French Huguenots fled France in search of religious freedom. My Huguenot ancestor, Joachim Gaillard, took his religious conviction seriously and joined the masses in hopes of a new life. Probably under the influence of King Charles of England, Joachim joined a crew of 600 and headed to the new settlement of Charles Town in South Carolina. Although the soil of the Santee River was fertile and optimal for plantation building, Joachim didn’t realize life in the Promised Land meant saying goodbye to the suave French pronunciation of his surname, which went from “Guy-yah” to “Gil-yard” (talk about Americanizing).
Regardless, life was prosperous for the Joachim Gaillards, and six generations of reputable Charleston citizens later, one Gaillard decided to look for new ground in the Heart of Dixie. The year was 1832 when my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, Thomas Gaillard, above left, said goodbye to the Charlestonian Gaillards and moved to Claiborne, Alabama, to build his own plantation. After a decade, Thomas sold his land and moved to Mobile, where he resided until his death, leaving more generations of Gaillards to carry on his name here.
Since then, I’d say we have done a pretty good job of that. As my cousin Frye Gaillard, a writer and editor of more than 20 books and MB contributor, states, “Our family’s history is a long one … Collectively, we have been part of events beginning with the early settlement of what became the state of South Carolina to more recent historical events such as the Civil Rights movement. Those of us who know this history often want to
add to it in a constructive way.”
For example, my cousin, the late Wilson Gaillard, did us proud when he envisioned a man-made island in Mobile Bay for nesting sea birds. Today, thousands, including the once-almost-extinct brown pelican, have found safe habitat on Gaillard Island. And when two dear uncles — Tommy and Peter Gaillard — lost their lives to pancreatic cancer, our family bonded together to create an endowment at the USA-Mitchell Cancer Institute for research and awareness. I can confi-dently say the Gaillards continue to live up to our forefathers’ name. Even if it is super difficult to pronounce.
"5 Ways To Preserve Your Wedding"
There is something about big moments that we don't like to let go of. We approach these moments with reverence, excitement and usually a bit of fear, allowing them to captivate the majority of our thoughts and emotions. Then, the moments happen. We relish in the excitement and joy of everything we have anticipated and planned.
But what happens when it's over? All we have left are our memories. So what do we do? We look for ways to preserve them. We replay moments over and over, etching them in our minds like tattoos. We take pictures, snapshots of the smiles, the colors, the youthfulness; all to preserve a memory.
A wedding is one of these moments. From photo albums to guest books, capturing the details and special memories of those moments is essential. So, what will you do to help preserve the most important day of your life? Here, we've compiled a list of options to help you along the way.
1. PRESERVE YOUR BOUQUETA bride’s bouquet is precious. It holds a lot of weight for a seemingly simple bunch of flowers. Great preparation and thought go into choosing each leaf and bloom. So it is no wonder a bride may not be so quick to send it sailing into a sea of single ladies. Keep your bouquet and throw off a replica. After the festivities, place the flowers in the fridge, or at least a vase of water. Then get a friend or family member to deliver it to a preservationist (try Forget-Me-Knot) as soon as possible after the wedding. Flower pressing or preserving is the best way to ensure you never really lose the loveliness of that most-devoted wedding day accessory. Put them in a frame, keep them in a vase, or press them in a scrapbook.
2. PRESERVE YOUR DRESS…WELLThis one seems like a no-brainer, but for some, pouring more money into after-wedding expenses might seem needless. Preserving your wedding dress seems simple enough: put it in an air-tight container and done, right? Nope. Lots of precision goes into taking the right steps to preserve your dress. Preservation services (available at The Timeless Bride and Waite's Cleaners) clean, steam and seal a dress so that it will not yellow or deteriorate. For best results, have your dress preserved within two or three weeks of your wedding day.
3. SAVE THE CAKENothing shouts “wedding day” like a slice of ceremonial cake. A great way to keep the memory of your wedding day alive is by saving the top layer of your cake to enjoy with your spouse on your anniversary. The concept is simple, but how you preserve your cake is key. Without the right precautions, you could be greeted with a clump of freezer-burned icing when the time is right. Here’s our bride-tested secret for how to store your cake: Seal the layer in a generous casing of plastic wrap, then aluminum foil, then more plastic wrap. Finally, place the cake in a box or tin to protect it from bumps in the freezer.
4. AGE-WORTHY WINEBeing able to enjoy a glass of wedding-day-wine on your anniversary is a great way to reminisce on your special day. That is why it is important that the wine you choose is age-worthy. Expensive doesn’t always mean age-worthy, and you should be careful when choosing which bottle is the bottle. Click here to read up on how to choose the right one.
5. SHARE THE DETAILSBrides of years past announced weddings and engagements with ads in local newspapers: here today, gone tomorrow. For a more detailed account of when, where, what and who that will last for years to come, opt for something a bit more durable. Each annual issue of Mobile Bay Bride includes an extensive registry of local weddings with beautiful photographs, clean layouts and detailed descriptions of your big day. Share with friends and family unable to attend the ceremony, or keep the magazine year-round for occasional perusal whenever the nostalgia strikes. Register here by July 31 for an Early Bird Discount!
But what happens when it's over? All we have left are our memories. So what do we do? We look for ways to preserve them. We replay moments over and over, etching them in our minds like tattoos. We take pictures, snapshots of the smiles, the colors, the youthfulness; all to preserve a memory.
A wedding is one of these moments. From photo albums to guest books, capturing the details and special memories of those moments is essential. So, what will you do to help preserve the most important day of your life? Here, we've compiled a list of options to help you along the way.
1. PRESERVE YOUR BOUQUETA bride’s bouquet is precious. It holds a lot of weight for a seemingly simple bunch of flowers. Great preparation and thought go into choosing each leaf and bloom. So it is no wonder a bride may not be so quick to send it sailing into a sea of single ladies. Keep your bouquet and throw off a replica. After the festivities, place the flowers in the fridge, or at least a vase of water. Then get a friend or family member to deliver it to a preservationist (try Forget-Me-Knot) as soon as possible after the wedding. Flower pressing or preserving is the best way to ensure you never really lose the loveliness of that most-devoted wedding day accessory. Put them in a frame, keep them in a vase, or press them in a scrapbook.
2. PRESERVE YOUR DRESS…WELLThis one seems like a no-brainer, but for some, pouring more money into after-wedding expenses might seem needless. Preserving your wedding dress seems simple enough: put it in an air-tight container and done, right? Nope. Lots of precision goes into taking the right steps to preserve your dress. Preservation services (available at The Timeless Bride and Waite's Cleaners) clean, steam and seal a dress so that it will not yellow or deteriorate. For best results, have your dress preserved within two or three weeks of your wedding day.
3. SAVE THE CAKENothing shouts “wedding day” like a slice of ceremonial cake. A great way to keep the memory of your wedding day alive is by saving the top layer of your cake to enjoy with your spouse on your anniversary. The concept is simple, but how you preserve your cake is key. Without the right precautions, you could be greeted with a clump of freezer-burned icing when the time is right. Here’s our bride-tested secret for how to store your cake: Seal the layer in a generous casing of plastic wrap, then aluminum foil, then more plastic wrap. Finally, place the cake in a box or tin to protect it from bumps in the freezer.
4. AGE-WORTHY WINEBeing able to enjoy a glass of wedding-day-wine on your anniversary is a great way to reminisce on your special day. That is why it is important that the wine you choose is age-worthy. Expensive doesn’t always mean age-worthy, and you should be careful when choosing which bottle is the bottle. Click here to read up on how to choose the right one.
5. SHARE THE DETAILSBrides of years past announced weddings and engagements with ads in local newspapers: here today, gone tomorrow. For a more detailed account of when, where, what and who that will last for years to come, opt for something a bit more durable. Each annual issue of Mobile Bay Bride includes an extensive registry of local weddings with beautiful photographs, clean layouts and detailed descriptions of your big day. Share with friends and family unable to attend the ceremony, or keep the magazine year-round for occasional perusal whenever the nostalgia strikes. Register here by July 31 for an Early Bird Discount!
SpringHillian Reporter (Spring 2014)
"The Appeal of Francis: The Pope's
First Year"
First Year"
"Identifying SHC's Catholic Identity"
"Feb. 14: The Only Date for Dates?"
"Lent: A Season of Transformation"
"Hangout Music Festival Coming to Mobile
in May"
in May"
"For the Ladies"
"So, What Are You Doing This Summer?"
Other
"Wildflowers", 2015
Never again, for as long as I live, will I be as wise and naive as I am in this moment. 19 years old, on the brink of numerical adulthood. It is my last summer as a teen, and I don’t want it to start, because most things that start also come to an end. It’s not that I am afraid of growing up and getting old. I am not even really afraid of dying. Change has happened my whole life, and I know it will only keep happening and will never ever stop. I am okay with change. I think what scares me is staying the same.
Starring up at the sun I count to see how long I can last, as Tilly and I did on summer afternoons when we were children. I consider calling Tilly, but I know I will not have much to say. “Hey Til. It’s been a while. How are you?” Aly! I have missed you so much, I am doing well! classes, boyfriend, mom, bitchy girl who did rude thing that really isn’t that big of a deal. “Oh thats so good to hear Tilly. I really miss your mom.” She misses you too, asks about you all the time, boyfriend, difficult exam, boyfriend….
Summertime is usually the time when all my hometown friends, like Tilly, hang out at Dairy Queen and pretend to still be in high school. Although sometimes it sounds okay, I don’t want an illusion. I’m tired of temporary things.
I listen hard and hopeful for the sound of a breeze making its way through the branches of the oak trees, but to no avail. Water from the damp soil seep through my t-shirt, moistening the skin between my shoulder blades. The coolness is refreshing, but it doesn’t last. Soon I just feel hot, damp and uncomfortable. I tuck my hair behind my back, hoping it will absorb the moisture. It doesn’t.
Turning my face upwards, I look deep into the sky, past the clouds and try to penetrate the ozone layer with my stare. My focus is broken by the tickle of a sugar ant crawling across the back of my hand, and with the decision to spare his harmless life, I watch as he crawls from my thumb to the stem of a dandelion. I imagine how big everything must be for him. How big and foreign the world must be; even just the meadow; even just the back of my hand.The ant marches upwards, towards the petals, as quickly as he can, trying to escape the reach of my hand, the glare of my eyes, the heat from my breath. Seeking refuge in a dandelion that was as weak and fragile as he is. Seeking refuge from something that has already detected value in him, something as harmless as summer grass, but with the potential to be terrible. The ability to be terrible. To be terrible.
I looked up again at the blinding sun. I tighten my eyes close and let the white dots dance around in the dark. Suddenly I am a white dot, dancing in “Giselle”. At first I am merely a Wilis again, floating along with the other white dots. Beautiful but indistinguishable. Bourré bourré bourré bourré bourré...I feel the heartbeat of the bodies around me; I feel them in sync with mine; I see our arms move up and down; I see the eyes look at us as a unit, but no one looks at me, the way my eyes are filled with tears. Then, I am looking at the Wilis. I hear the slowing pace of the orchestra. I hear my breaths pick up speed. Every eye looks at me. I am Myrtha, Queen of the Wilis. My arms are folded, holding on to no one or nothing but my heartbeat- the only one to be heard. From left to right they follow my lead, chins up. I am alone on the stage, a bright beam illuminates my existence. The only white dot left to dance in the dark. The people clap and say “she's one of these beautiful ethereal beings.” They fill my arms with flowers. Lilies, Daffodils, Tulips, Lisianthus. I look for the dandelion. The sanctuary for my little ant. Roses, Lilacs, Blue Veronica, Iris. They fill arms, my hair, my lungs. I grow frantic looking for my dandelion. I throw down the expensive bouquets. I pull them out of my hair, I pull out the bobby pins and the things that make my head tight. On my hands and knees I tear about each stem, leaf petal. Searching for my little ant atop his wild dandelion. The bright illuminating beam dims, slowly, slowly. No wildflowers. None at all.
I open my eyes just as the darkness is coming, secretly but all at once. In the distance I hear the sirens of an ambulance. I hear it softly and faintly and then louder and louder until it fades once again, off into the dark streets, off to save a life that isn’t mine. I slowly sit up, keeping my hands firm on the ground, and look all around me. The only light I see is the one coming from our house on a hill. Not even the stars are shining. They are there, I can see them, but they bring no light. In our house on a hill I see the silhouettes of people in the kitchen. They move around, sometimes they stop. I think about what they all must be doing in there. Something involving supper. No one has called for me for supper. My mother is probably filling glasses with ice from the ice trays. Not ice from the ice machine. Because no one had cleaned out the filter yet, and we couldn't have unfiltered ice cubes. My father is probably making jokes to Martin, my sister's fiance. Jokes that Martin would laugh at, but I wouldn't have. My sister is probably in the bathroom wiping mascara dust out from under her eyes. Or maybe she is folding napkins. Or maybe she is laughing at jokes my father told Martin.
Pulling my feet towards me I wipe away the bits of grass between my cold toes. Standing up I walk towards our house. Up the hill and towards the house. I only pause once to pick a lemon off the lemon tree. If my dad had seen me he would have said something like, "Alyssa! Those lemons aren't ready to be picked yet! Now you better eat it, I don't care how bitter." But he didn't see me. And I preferred to eat them too bitter. I feel a mosquito bite my shoulder, I slap my shoulder, and throw the lemon over the roof of our house, right over the chimney and listen as it thuds on the other side. It probably rolled right off, passing my sister’s bathroom window on the way down. I open the back door.
Squinting my eyes to adjust to the light, I walk towards the back of the house and into my bathroom. Softly closing the door without making a sound, I look at my reflection in the mirror. The color in my eyes is dim, washed out by my invisible skin and forgettable lips. I take a deep breath and touch the brim of my nose. On it is a red scar from the time when I was 11 and got sunburned so severely that I vomited for three days straight. "Aly, is that you?," my mother calls. "Yes Mamma," I respond, while washing the meadow out from under my nails. "We are eating supper honey." The tone of her voice is gentle. It comforts me but terrifies me all the same. After drying my hands and turning out the lights I stay facing the mirror for a moment until my eyes adjust to my reflection in the darkness and then I open the door.
The table is set for five although one place had different dishes than the others and no folded napkin. I figure that is my allotted seat and grab a napkin from the drawer before sitting down. On the table sits a vase of dried flowers from my parents’ anniversary months ago and glasses filled with iceless water. My sister places a basket of rolls on the table right in front of Martin’s seat and looks at me. “Aly, do you think you could help?” “Where’s Martin and Dad?” I ask, pushing back my chair to grab the casserole dish sitting on the stove. “Mom asked them to take a look at those table legs in her studio.” My mother’s “studio” was just a big closet filled with acrylics and half painted canvases with pretty colors that always look a bit out of place. She goes in there when my father leaves for work, and I am gone away at school. When I was little, Saturday mornings she would let me sit in the studio with her. Sometimes I would tell her stories about playground drama and dance class while she nodded and said “Mmhmm.” But most of the time I would silently watch as she added strokes of blues and golds and whites. I always thought my mother’s beauty was so evident when she painted. The steady way her hand moved across the canvas, supplying viability to something so plain and lifeless. I’d sit and watch as each color she added complimented the other ones, but yet still never quite united. She use to tell me that I inspired her to paint. She never told me that anymore.
“Where have you been all afternoon?” Martin asked once we are all seated at the table and have said Grace. I see my father nod from the corner of my eye. “ Outside,” I say softly, pushing the rice around on my blue ceramic plate. I look up at Martin who was half way done with his first serving of food and study his face as he jaw moves up and down, and his dark eyes keep focus on the diminishing porkchop in front of him. His moon-shaped face has almost less color than mine. I once heard my sister describe him as “well proportioned.” My dad loves him. My mother intimidates him. “Alyssa eat. Nutrients honey.” I grab the sliced lemons sitting next to the water pitcher and shove them in my mouth. “Grow up Aly,” my sister scoffs under her breath. I feel the blood rush to cheeks. This phrase was my sister’s number one weapon and it works everytime. Especially recently. I think of all the different insults I can catapult back to her, like the fact that she is bossy and inconsiderate, like the fact that she almost failed out of nursing school, or the fact that her fiance looks like a moon. Instead I begin to hum “Waltz of the Flowers” and take a bite of my rice.
For the rest of dinner I move my food a bit around the plate, cut my pork chops into pieces and take a few more bites of rice. Martin tells my mother how good the food is. My father tells my mother how they fixed the studio table. My sister talks about who she saw at the grocery store, how skinny they have gotten and their recent engagements. I tune them out, humming compositions and thinking about beautiful things. Looking up I make eye contact with my mother. She’s looking at me like she does sometimes. Like I am this undetectable creature sitting at her kitchen table. But it isn’t insulting. It is understanding. It’s a look that gives me this overwhelming sense of gratitude. Like she knows its okay to be unknown.
In my mind I am four again. We are in the supermarket and my sister is asking if she can put everything we pass in the shopping cart. I don’t remember how or why, but I remember walking away from my mother. I remember turning around to see if she would follow me, but she was reaching for something and didn’t look at me. I remember an elderly man, rolling around in his electric shopping cart. He told me how pretty my tutu was and asked me if I could show him some steps. The last thing I remember is his tears, and my mother frantically swooping me up in her arms. My mother tells me how angry she was until she saw the old man crying as I showed him my plies and sautes. “Let her grow where she may,” the old man told my mother. She has only told this part of the story once.
At the end of dinner my father stands up and turns on his Tchaikovsky CD and walks out of the room, leaving his dish at the table. Martin leaps up, grabbing my sister’s and father’s dishes, and brings them to the sink. He returns, asking if he could take my mother’s too, who politely declines and directs him to leave my dish alone too. “This one has a lot more to go before her plate can be cleared,” she says. “You don’t have to monitor me, Mom,” I state. She shakes her head and cleans her plate with the last bite of her roll. Martin and my sister leave the kitchen, whispering about “rehabilitation.”
I look up from my rice and watch as my mother pours dish soap onto a wash rag. Above the sink sits a window, the blinds are open and outside you can see the dark figures of the oak trees that sit at the bottom of the hill. At first glance, they look like mountains, a great mountain range whose peaks are glorified by the sea of stars that decorate the sky. The stars know what they are doing, revealing the mountains as merely oaks, looking at me through the meadow, over my mother’s head, into the kitchen.
Senior Capstone: "Living Intentionally: The
Use of an Artistic Print Magazine to Inspire
Young Adults"
Use of an Artistic Print Magazine to Inspire
Young Adults"